Saturday, December 15, 2012

Top Secret Santa

The Christmas season has a kind of weird
twist to it in the Kingdom. It's not that Christmas is outlawed or anything –
some Muslims celebrate Christmas and it's not against the Islamic faith – it's
just that it's heavily discouraged. At the University, it's more or less a
hanging crime to mention Christmas around the wrong people.

In the University, we are almost encouraged
to report each other for any misdemeanor or supposed slight. If someone hears
you say something like 'Merry Christmas' or, God forbid, you should say it to
the wrong person, you could be called into HR for a talking to.

For the past couple of weeks we have been
conducting a Secret Santa project in… well, secret. Every week we give our
victims Secret Santas two gifts, each signed with a "SS" instead of "Secret
Santa" in case the note should fall into the wrong hands.

We fall silent when someone who has reported
us before for 'intolerant behavior' (the irony is not lost on us) walks by.

I've been leaving my Secret Santa booby traps
of food in front of her door so that when she opens it she inevitable steps on
it. You have to make your own fun in the Kingdom.

For the final gift I have gotten her a ball
pit. Like a child's ball pit a la Chucky Cheese. She is going to freak and this
is the most exciting thing that I can look forward to around the Christmas
season.Going to Christmas parties are
not any kind of fun without my family around.

Blog about the five months I spent in India, traveling and volunteering at All Bengal Women's Union: Oh India!

Follow by Email!

Quotes

"You can't just read the guide book. You've got to throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers - or is that just me? Stop asking questions. Go and do it!"--Doctor Who

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”-- Herman Melville

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”--Lao Tzu

"I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”--Bill Bryson

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” Mary Ann Radmacher